plants growing hair?

[Pointy_kitty]

about 4 months ago i got 2 plants for my tank
i'm not sure of the names but the have a billion small round leaves and they are very tall and viney
my fish love to sleep in them but recently (almost over night) they grew stringy, green hairlike fibers
these fibers are very unatractive, messy and trailing
i know this is most likely a type of algae but i would like more info on it!

are they bad/ will they harm my fish or plants?
how do i get rid of them/ prevent them?
what causes them to grow?

i would appreciate as many of these answers as possible

thank guys/ gals!

 

[Dubby]

Please take a look at this article from Aquaticscape

 

[Bol]

Could be algae, but three questions first.

How long are the hairlike fibers?
Are they darker green, or closer to white-green?
Do they grow from everywhere, or only at leaf "junctions"?

 

[Pointy_kitty]

Could be algae, but three questions first.

How long are the hairlike fibers?
Are they darker green, or closer to white-green?
Do they grow from everywhere, or only at leaf "junctions"?

the fibers are really long and medium green (not at all whitish but not super dark)
they are only growing on the plant leaves and turning my loose bushy plant into a tightly tangled bush (but my fish love it)
most of my fish wedge themselves in the bushes to sleep when the lights go out
i do have to scrub my tank walls with an algae scrubber today since the are getting brown in lots of spots

i think this all happened because i wasn't putting in algae discs for a while (and my tank was spotless) and then i started to put one in almost daily for my flying fox and platy
thats when my tank turned ugly!